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three hundred pupils, and wholly taught by educated colored men, would bear comparison with any ordinary school at the north. Not only good reading and spelling were heard, but lessons at the black-board in arithmetic, recitations in geography and English grammar. Very creditable specimens of writing were shown, and all the older classes could read or recite as fluently in French as in English. This was a free school, wholly supported by the colored people of the city, and the children were from the common class of families. They have six select schools where a better class attend. All the above cases illustrate the remark that this educational movement among the freedmen has in it a self-sustaining element. I took special pains to ascertain the facts on this particular point, and have to report that there are schools of this kind in some stage of advancement (taught and supported wholly by the people themselves) in all the large places I visited - often numbers of them, and they are also making their appearance through the interior of the entire country. The Superintendent of South Carolina assured me that there was not a place of any size in the whole of that State where there was not an attempt at such a school. I have much testimony, both oral and written, from others well informed, that the same is true of other States. There can scarcely be a doubt, and I venture the estimate that at least five hundred schools of this description are already in operation throughout the south. If therefore, all these be added, and including soldiers and individuals at study, we shall have at least 125,000 as the entire educational census of this lately emancipated people.- This is a wonderful state of things. We have just emerged from a terrific war; peace is not yet declared. There is scarcely the beginning of re-organized society at the south; and yet here is a people long imbruted by slavery, and the most despised of any on earth, whose chains are no sooner broken than they spring to their feet and start up an exceeding great army. clothing themselves with intelligence.  What other people on earth have even shown, while in their ignorance, such a passion for education? 
It is also seen that the children of the poor whites of the south are very ready to receive instruction, and that already considerable has been done for them. 
The conclusions forced upon us from the above facts are:
1. THE EXPERIMENT OF EDUCATING THE FREEDMEN 

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PROVES TO BE SUCCESSFUL, and the ignorant whites may be greatly benefited. 
It only remains to carry on with confidence the work so well begun.
That colored children can at once compete with white children, who from the first have had high advantages, need not be said. It is enough that with early bad habits, bad example, and wholly unpracticed in study, they seize upon books gladly, and learn rapidly. As well endowed naturally or not, we certainly see in the majority the same brightness, the same quick ambition, as with children of the more favored color, and, stimulated as they are by the novelty of study, there is at present an actual progress scarcely to be paralleled anywhere. In advanced studies, or at a mature age, pupils give no signs of having reached the limit of their capacity. I have discovered hesitation in their plans for using education. Their ardor is dampened by the well known aversion to their occupying high position; but always, when assured that as character and intelligence increase, ways and means of usefulness will be opened, they are ready to push on to new and harder tasks. When I have told the higher classes in the schools that they will be wanted as teachers, at least of their own color, a new stimulus is seen at once to excite them, and their instructors have always assured me that such promise has inspired an intense ambition.
   It is probable that the tastes and temperament of the race, which are peculiar certainly, will lead in special directions. They may not excel in the inventive power, or abstract science, perhaps not in mathematics, though we have seen commendable ciphering in the colored schools. But they certainly are emotional, imitative, and affectionate; are graphic and figurative in language; have conceptions of beauty and song, and already become skilled mechanics and even artists. If so, then why are not this people destined to honor labor, gladden social life, and become good citizens; and when sufficiently cultured, to enlarge art, invest ideas with harmony and grace, give hearty good cheer to religious faith, and thus add important elements to the more perfect civilization of the coming time?
   As to improvement at an advanced age, we find individuals vigorously attempting, and many are succeeding. Colored troops have shown aptness to discipline, and courage never more to be questioned. Under exceeding disadvantage a large portion of these soldiers have become